Hi all,
I'm glad to announce the release of IPython 0.6.6. IPython's homepage is at:
http://ipython.scipy.org
and downloads are at:
http://ipython.scipy.org/dist
I've provided RPMs (Py2.2 and 2.3), plus source downloads (.tar.gz and .zip).
Debian, Fink and BSD packages for this version should be coming soon, as the
respective maintainers (many thanks to Jack Moffit, Andrea Riciputi and Dryice
Liu) have the time to follow their packaging procedures.
Many thanks to Enthought for their continued hosting support for IPython, and
to all the users who contributed ideas, fixes and reports.
Release notes
-------------
This release was made to fix a few crashes recently found by users, and also
to keep compatibility with matplotlib, whose internal namespace structure was
recently changed.
* Adapt to matplotlib's new name convention, where the matlab-compatible
module is called pylab instead of matlab. The change should be transparent to
all users, so ipython 0.6.6 will work both with existing matplotlib versions
(which use the matlab name) and the new versions (which will use pylab instead).
* Don't crash if pylab users have a non-threaded pygtk and they attempt to use
the GTK backends. Instead, print a decent error message and suggest a few
alternatives.
* Improved printing of docstrings for classes and instances. Now, class,
constructor and instance-specific docstrings are properly distinguished and
all printed. This should provide better functionality for matplotlib.pylab
users, since matplotlib relies heavily on class/instance docstrings for
end-user information.
* New timing functionality added to %run. '%run -t prog' will time the
execution of prog.py. Not as fancy as python's timeit.py, but quick and easy
to use. You can optionally ask for multiple runs.
* Improved (and faster) verbose exeptions, with proper reporting of dotted
variable names (this had been broken since ipython's beginnings).
* The IPython.genutils.timing() interface changed, now the repetition number
is not a parameter anymore, fixed to 1 (the most common case). timings()
remains unchanged for multiple repetitions.
* Added ipalias() similar to ipmagic(), and simplified their interface. They
now take a single string argument, identical to what you'd type at the ipython
command line. These provide access to aliases and magics through a python
function call, for use in nested python code (the special alias/magic syntax
only works on single lines of input).
* Fix an obscure crash with recursively embedded ipythons at the command line.
* Other minor fixes and cleanups, both to code and documentation.
The NEWS file can be found at http://ipython.scipy.org/NEWS, and the full
ChangeLog at http://ipython.scipy.org/ChangeLog.
Enjoy, and as usual please report any problems.
Regards,
Fernando.